Total pages in book: 134
Estimated words: 124135 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 621(@200wpm)___ 497(@250wpm)___ 414(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 124135 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 621(@200wpm)___ 497(@250wpm)___ 414(@300wpm)
I hadn’t wanted anyone else in my life for fear of what would happen if I lost this fight. But now that I was here, with Cromwell, him becoming my oar, helping me sail across this lake, I knew it could never have been any other way.
We moved in silence, just the singing birds and the rustling leaves as our soundtrack. As a bird sang, I looked up and then at Cromwell. “Mustard yellow,” he said. I smiled, then looked at the leaves almost touching the lake from an overhanging branch. “Bronze.”
I pulled the blanket higher over me when a chill started building at my toes. I closed my eyes and listened to the mustard-yellow and bronze notes.
I opened my eyes when I heard the sound of Mozart’s Fourth Symphony. Cromwell had stopped rowing and had placed his cell next to him.
I was transported back to our first meeting. When I’d left the club and walked down to the beach in Brighton. I’d always loved the water, and there was something so majestic about the thrashing waves of the sea in Britain. Even in summer it was turbulent and cold.
The calm of Mozart’s Clarinet Concerto in A Major had been playing beside me, a stark contrast to what I’d been watching. Then, as turbulent as the waves, Cromwell Dean had staggered down to the beach, Jack Daniels in hand. His troubled eyes had snapped to mine as he heard the music from my phone.
And now, “Mozart?” I asked and smiled. He must have remembered that meeting too.
“Amadeus and I have reached an understanding.”
“Yeah?”
He nodded. “We’re friends again.”
“Good,” I said in response. But there was more to that word. Because Cromwell was in love with classical music again. He was playing again. I tipped my head to the side as he sat back in his seat. I waited until there was a dip in the symphony to ask, “What do you want to do with your life, Crom?”
Cromwell sat forward and took my hand. It was as if it gave him strength. A man in a vintage canoe paddled past. Cromwell watched him. “I always see him here,” he said absently. He shrugged. “I want it all.” He squeezed my hand tighter. “I want to create music. That’s all I’ve ever wanted to do.” He smirked. “I don’t have any other talent.”
I wished I had the ability to speak more than a few breathless words. Because I would have told him that he needed no other talent. Because how he created music, his ability, was like nothing I’d ever seen or heard. It was above sheer talent. It was divine. And it was exactly what he was meant to do.
“I like EDM, but I need to compose classical too.” He rubbed his lips together. “I just want to play. Create. For whoever, wherever, as long as I have music in my life. I love EDM, but I suppose nothing quite gives me the same feeling as classical.” He nodded his head in my direction. “You were right. Through classical, you tell a story without words. Move people. Inspire them.” He sighed like he had found a glimmer of peace in his tortured soul. “When I play classical, when I compose…it means something. It gives meaning to my life.” He looked at me and paused, as if stopping himself from saying something.
“What?” I tugged on his hand.
He searched my eyes, then said, “Lewis has offered me his place in the show that’s coming to Charleston soon. To compose and show my work.” My eyes widened. If my heart could have raced, it would have kicked into a sprint. Cromwell ducked his head, like he was embarrassed. “A symphony.” He inhaled, and I saw the weight of what he had carried for three years, with his father, shine in his eyes. “I wouldn’t have long. To compose. But…” He could do it. I was sure he already had a symphony in his heart just waiting to burst out.
“You need to do it.” I thought back on all the videos I had seen of him playing as a child. The music that had come to him as naturally as breathing then. What was an even stronger need now. “You must do it.” I used the little energy I had to lean forward and cup his cheek.
Cromwell looked at me. “I don’t want to leave you.” In case this is all the time we’ll ever have. I saw the words in his head as vibrantly as he saw color when he heard a simple noise. I thought of the gala—to me, so far away. And I knew that if a heart didn’t come, I wouldn’t be there to see it.
It was funny. My heart was dying, yet I never felt any pain from it alone. But in that moment, I was sure it was crying at the fact that it might not see Cromwell Dean in his element, on the stage he was born to stand on.